The Powers That Be ([personal profile] powersthatbe) wrote in [community profile] synodiporia_ooc2015-08-28 06:41 pm
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Test Drive #11.

Welcome to the Synodiporia Test Drive Meme! Below the cuts there are two new prompts, and here are the prompts from previous test-drives, which you’re still welcome to use in this post. When you comment, be sure you specify what prompt you want to play with, and please put up your own threadstarter - it makes for a much more friendly environment that a forest of bare toplevels! OCs are especially welcome! Please take a quick look at our Directory & familiarize yourself with the concept and setting of the game before you jump in.

Our upcoming app round runs September 1st-7th. Our next Jaunt, The Lightning Age, a postcolonial steampunk romp with a hunt for a fugitive disordering a peaceful flying city, will run September 12th-October 19th, and an alternate player-driven setting, or Walkabout, will be available (but the specific setting has yet to be voted upon).

Prompt #33 is set in the sometimes Mad-Max like post-apocalyptic academia of the Ivory Tower jaunt, where an isolated school works to restore civilization decades after a brutal war destroyed it. But off-campus, things can get a little rougher…

Prompt #34 is set in the world of Heartbreak Academy, a shoujo high school world where Social Technology, or S. Tech, allows the physical conjuration of emotions - sparkles, roses, soundtracks, emotes and rainclouds. Heartbreak Academy teaches elite students how to better master their S. Tech - and as you could imagine, this makes practical exams… very interesting...


Prompt #33: Pop Quiz.

There are chlorine bombs in the library, and snipers outside.

To be more specific, the library is an open-air market set up in a suburban French high-rise parking garage, one of the few buildings on this side of the city to survive intact, and a good place for gatherings that might need a quick getaway. Academics from across Europe use it as a trading post - bringing old books, or bringing computer printouts collected in three-ring binders, driving up in dune buggies or armored trucks, landing on the ceiling in helicopters, conducting a rapid swap of the valuables, and leaving.

But this time, the warlords knew they were coming. On each floor, among the parked cars, there’s a truck or van with deflated tires and an empty gas tank, in which an oil-drum and a detonator have been mounted. It’s overkill, but worse is the fact that in half-demolished buildings to either side are snipers. To the west, they only have crossbows, but the raider on the northeast has some sort of pre-War antimateriel rifle, and he’s already scragged a buggy in the exit ramp and shot a chopper pilot on the roof.

So now, it’s up to the academics. Those who study environmental sciences are trying to find ways to neutralize the chemicals. Engineers are working to disarm the detonators or fix the vehicles enough to safely transport the bombs. The history and humanities students are given the job of finding some way to stop the snipers, and stop raiders from getting in to steal any of their texts or other resources.

And some, of course, are caught in the fine traditions of academic debate, and may need Travelers to steer them to more decisive action… but of course, there might be Travelers among the raiders, too.


Prompt #34 Partner Exercise

The exam is simple. Each of you’s been given a spare, teacher-monitored Moe-Meter and left alone in the exam hall. Using S. Tech - not just fancy manifestations, but your words and actions, your persuasive skill and acting ability, all the skills that make you effective with S. Tech - you and your partner for this exam have to bury the needle. The problem is, you have to do it in both directions - positive emotion, maxing things out with cuteness, fondness, or warm feelings - and negative emotion, hitting empty on the meter through sadness, anger, or fear. Any sort of against-the-rules physical contact is an automatic F (if your partner reports it), but apart from that, it’s up to your imagination. You have fifteen minutes - that’s like Seven Minutes In Heaven and Seven in Hell, with one minute of cooldown in between.
urbanwhizkid: (down_confused_sad)

[personal profile] urbanwhizkid 2015-08-29 05:16 am (UTC)(link)
Blinking, Yosuke looks away from a screen where he'd been rewatching the face off with Nametame in the hospital. His gaze skirting around the replay of Kanji's other self in the bathhouse. There are some memories he doesn't want to revist ever.

"Konishi-san, what are you doing here?" Now he's just really confused. What was senpai's little brother doing in a place like this? And why didn't he sound like he was trying to kill him with just the sound of his voice? Last time Naoki spoke to him, he was pretty admit about hating Yosuke and everything about him. And there was that whole tone where Naoki implied it was his fault Saki-senpai was dead.
leftbehindagain: (chopped liver)

[personal profile] leftbehindagain 2015-08-29 05:25 am (UTC)(link)
Wait, that one is showing something different, isn't it? Naoki eyes it for a moment, frowning.

(Really, that's the plan they almost went with? Good going, guys, way to almost kill the wrong guy. Suppose it never occurred to you to, oh, I don't know, ask the victims' families... It's just as well he's not in a mood to talk about that.)

"Same thing as you, probably." His attention goes back to the TV with what has to be Kanji's Shadow on it. "If that's what we would've been stuck with, I think I'm glad we missed out..."
urbanwhizkid: (so pretty | in awe)

[personal profile] urbanwhizkid 2015-09-02 03:55 am (UTC)(link)
It wasn't the best plan, but they were all sort of really emotional right then. Honestly, Yosuke doesn't consider that to be one of his finer moments. But Nanako-chan was really dear to him and at that point she'd been...it wasn't a moment he really wanted to remember too clearly. It was bad enough Saki-senpai's death was burned into his memory like it was.

"Sure okay," What is he supposed to be doing exactly? There was a serious lack of shadows and fog for this to be a normal rescue mission. "Huh?" He turns his attention back to the TV and cringes a little Shadow Kanji and his two minions. It was bad enough to live did that rescue need to be immortalized on the silver screen. "What? Missed out?"

There's a picture forming but he's not sure he likes the sound of it. If nothing else it doesn't sound like Naoki is all that surprised by shadow versions of people and having to fight them. "You know what's happening there Konishi-san?"
leftbehindagain: (special headquarters)

[personal profile] leftbehindagain 2015-09-02 04:21 am (UTC)(link)
"Of course I do. The fact that Kanji never had a Shadow of his own was one of the first red flags we had - God knows he has enough issues to merit one." Even if it would be distinctly less fabulous now, and probably more focused on how he's a sneeze away from a nervous breakdown if he keeps trying to be everyone's rock and not letting someone be his rock.

"So unless your Wild Card of choice got the full Shadow treatment..."
urbanwhizkid: (someone stole the rug out from under him)

[personal profile] urbanwhizkid 2015-09-02 04:28 am (UTC)(link)
It would be wrong to find that funny wouldn't it? Sure Kanji isn't the most rock solid as far as the team goes but he was dependable enough once he joined them. At the very least he's got a point, Yu never had to face his shadow, he had said as much about that when asked.

Wait Wild Card of choice? "Wait a minute Yu isn't your leader?" He glances between the screen and Naoki (of course he had to time it perfectly to catch a recap of one of minions copping a feel). "So Kanji-kun..." Wow that is not something he expected in a million years.
leftbehindagain: (inconsequential)

[personal profile] leftbehindagain 2015-09-02 04:34 am (UTC)(link)
Naoki doesn't quite restrain a snort at the TV (mostly at Hanamura's reaction to it), but he doesn't comment on that. There are bigger things.

"There's... five or six timelines' worth of Inabas represented here. Narukami-san wasn't even part of our group - Kanji kind of knew him from the basketball team. Neither were you, for that matter." On the other hand, this makes the first other person who knows 'Yu Narukami' Naoki can think of...

(Well, and Yua, but Yua's Yua.)
urbanwhizkid: (i have a bad feeling about this | seriou)

[personal profile] urbanwhizkid 2015-09-02 05:33 am (UTC)(link)
Hey he'd like to see how well you'd handle getting groped by a big burly shadow.

Yosuke just shakes his head. "Stop. Ugh this makes my brain hurt." The crazy timeline multiple versions of home, not necessary. He's actually almost okay with not being a member of the team in whatever version of home Naoki was from. As much as he wants and needs to solve the case, sometimes there are moments where he wonders what it would be like if he'd just gone on being your average civilian. And just as quickly he forgets he ever thought about it in the first place because he wouldn't be happy with being idle on the sidelines for this. His shadows practically screamed as much.
leftbehindagain: (a concoction that sometimes works)

[personal profile] leftbehindagain 2015-09-02 06:48 am (UTC)(link)
"It's not going to stop, Hanamura. The timeline thing's the easy part."

Yeah, and how do you think Naoki feels? He's at his best when he has something to do, when he's held accountable - and no one did that but Kanji. He can't imagine trying to get through the last year without even that.

(For what it's worth, Hanamura wasn't completely on the sidelines - he had crucial information at one point, and ran interference so they had access to the TV. But after what happened when Satonaka insisted on rescuing her best friend, Kanji didn't want to bring another person in who wasn't prepared.)